Global Entrepreneurship Week Strengthens Support for African Entrepreneurs
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) August 26, 2014 -- Global Entrepreneurship Week and the John Templeton Foundation are teaming up to support African entrepreneurs in their efforts to start and scale new businesses.
Already, 34 African countries celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week each November with thousands of events, activities and competitions helping inspire, connect and mentor entrepreneurs at all levels. A new grant from the Templeton Foundation will empower teams in at least 10 of those countries to increase their work throughout the year by: launching a continental grassroots entrepreneurial ecosystem mapping initiative; developing a go-to African entrepreneurship resource library; and creating a new set of African entrepreneur role models.
“Too often, great individual programs and efforts fall short of their full potential because of knowledge gaps and a lack of cohesion between efforts to help burgeoning startup ecosystems,” said Jonathan Ortmans, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week. “This partnership will make a difference for bright entrepreneurial minds by giving them the tools, connections and support that they need to create local economic opportunities and begin changing the world’s perception of business in Africa.”
For GEW, the Templeton partnership comes at the same time as an increase in support for its partnership with the U.S. State Department around the LIONS@FRICA program outlined on Africa.co. The effort seeks to spur entrepreneurial growth in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting 100,000 entrepreneurs by 2020. Global Entrepreneurship Week is a founding partner of the program, along with the U.S. State Department, Microsoft, Nokia, the African Development Bank, DEMO and more.
"We are excited that our grant will enable the organizers of Global Entrepreneur Week to extend opportunities to a larger number of entrepreneurs in Africa,” said Dr. Roberta Herzberg, assistant director for Individual Freedom and Free Markets at the Templeton Foundation. “We look forward to seeing the array of possibilities such opportunities will unleash in the marketplace.”
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About Global Entrepreneurship Week
Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. During one week each November, thousands of events and competitions around the world inspire millions to engage in entrepreneurial activity while connecting them to potential collaborators, mentors and even investors. In six years, Global Entrepreneurship Week has expanded to more than 140 countries. Powered by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the initiative is supported by dozens of world leaders and a global network of roughly 10,000 partner organizations. GEW 2014 takes place from Nov. 17 - 23. For more information, visit http://www.gew.co and follow @unleashingideas on Twitter.
About the John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation is a philanthropic organization that funds inter-disciplinary research about human purpose and ultimate reality. It supports a range of programs including those intended to liberate the initiative of individuals and nations and to establish the necessary conditions for the success of profit-making enterprise. For more information, visit http://www.templeton.org and follow @templeton_fdn on Twitter.
Mark Marich, Global Entrepreneurship Week, http://www.gew.co, +1 202-370-6934, [email protected]
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